Skills Day With Pylons

As your players are getting ready to go on the ice have a quick talk with them, concerning how they prepare to go on the ice.  All players should have two sticks.  They should carry their second stick to the player's box and line them up properly.  Players should not be allowed to throw their sticks in the box.  Also each player should have his or her own water bottle.  The bottle should be carried to the bench and placed on the boards or in the bench.  Each player is responsible for their equipment. 

You can also instruct the players at this point that today is going to be a skills day; therefore they will need to careful to not knock over any pylons.  Explain to your players that the reason for pylons being on the ice is for the player to have their heads up to avoid hitting them.

Skills Day With Pylons

As your players are getting ready to go on the ice have a quick talk with them, concerning how they prepare to go on the ice.  All players should have two sticks.  They should carry their second stick to the player's box and line them up properly.  Players should not be allowed to throw their sticks in the box.  Also each player should have his or her own water bottle.  The bottle should be carried to the bench and placed on the boards or in the bench.  Each player is responsible for their equipment. 

You can also instruct the players at this point that today is going to be a skills day; therefore they will need to careful to not knock over any pylons.  Explain to your players that the reason for pylons being on the ice is for the player to have their heads up to avoid hitting them.

15 Minute drill

On one half of the ice, have the pylons staggered [see diagram], one line will be approximately at the edge of the circles all the way down the ice and the other line will be approximately 3 feet from the boards, on the other half of the ice put pylons in a straight line approximately 4 feet apart.

On skill days, it is very important to have a coach that can demonstrate the drills.

Prior to starting the drill bring the players over to your drill board to explain the drill. Once the players have seen the drill drawn out and explained, they go to their starting place, and you have a coach demonstrate the drill while you again explain it to the players.

The players will line up behind the red line on the boards behind the net. On the whistle player 1 will start skating forward toward the first pylon, [see diagram], and do a 2 foot glide turn toward the second pylon, at the second pylon, he will do a 2 foot glide turn heading toward the third pylon and so on all the way down to the far end of the ice.

Once at the far end of the ice the player will receive a pass from the coach standing in the corner with pucks, after the player receives the pass he skates to the net to take a shot. After the shot is taken the player goes to the second group of pylons. He will then skate as fast as he can through the pylons, in a slalom type manner, until he gets to the end of the pylon pattern. The player then looks to the corner, where coach will be with the puck, passing it to the player who goes to the net and takes a shot.

After the shot the player goes into the line he started the first drill to repeat the drill again. 
Once each player has gone through the course two times, it’s time for a water break.

Water break